California History

Do we have the ability to influence our ancestors? Or our future descendants? On a restless night several years ago, I found these thoughts changing the course of my novel.

I started out inspired to write about my Great Grandmother Emily who settled during the 1849 Gold Rush in the Sacramento Valley. But I didn’t want to write yet another biography of a head-strong, determined western woman. The book shelf’s already full of those! So I stepped back to look at the larger landscape.

Of course…we’re all spirit, and if time transcends the here and now, we all have access to each other’s lives. What if I could slip back into my great-grandmother’s life and tell her what she’d need to know that might ward off future ecological devastation? Or hear my great-granddaughter imploring me to build now what she’d need to survive when she returns to our abandoned homestead in the far future?

And what if we’re all connected by the vision of an ancient woman of wisdom who saw it all? Shima’a found a portal that transcended time. From the heartwood of an oak tree (that as an acorn grew from her heart when she died), a small oak writing desk became her means of inspiring women to gather their power and create new ways of living together. The old, aggressive masculine constructs have run their course. If earth and humanity are to survive, the feminine has to ascend.

It’s five in the morning and this is my first entry. It’s also the dark of night, my best time for writing. Like slipping between the covers of dreamtime and daylight – a very thin space where the two relax into each other and birth words that neither could have done alone.

What will you find on these pages? You’re probably as curious as I am. If you know me personally, you may have come here as a friend to touch base, see what’s up. Or you may be someone who’s heard about my novel-in-progress, The Desk, or have read sections from it and return to feel its texture. I was approached recently by two casual acquaintances who asked when the book would be ready. They wanted to read more. Derelyn and Michelle, this blog’s for you!

I anticipate this blog will be my way of telling a fuller story. Originally, my novel was just that – a historical fantasy of what it might have been like to have lived my Great-Grandmother Emily Hoppin’s life. Though I never met her, she’s my family heroine – arriving in California soon after the 1849 Gold Rush, settling in the small farming town of Yolo near Sacramento. Emily was widely known as a woman of principal whose articulate words, both written and spoken, influenced the future of women and the land in turn-of-the-century California. I have her scrapbook filled with speeches and newspaper articles about her. I feel her in my blood.

In future blogs, I’ll describe how her personal life morphed into a fictional story, then morphed again into a fantasy that spans three generations of women, all interconnected by a secret held within the family desk. Present, past and future, if you will.

This blog is my three-dimensional tic-tac-toe game where I can play with time, history (real and imagined) and see the world as it could be.

If you’re interested in History, there will be sections on early California. Geneology? I’ll post what I have about the real lives my book is based on. California Landscape: I’ll have photos and descriptions of nature’s wonders and their changes over time. Concern for the Future: I’ll not only describe my own impressions, but will link to other projections of where the earth is headed based on our past and current practices. Collective Power of the Feminine: Here’s a place where I take heart that the growing bonds of feminine (not just women’s) energy will bring a powerful caring and protection for our earth. And last, Creative Writing. I’ll include sections of The Desk and write about how I pull all this together.